MEI'S POV
Mei Chen had learned long ago how to read people. Years of working as a seamstress in Chinatown, dealing with all kinds of customers, had taught her to see beyond surfaces. To understand what people were really saying beneath their polite words.
And looking at Damien Blackwood now, she saw several things clearly.
He loved her daughter. That was obvious in every glance, every protective gesture, every careful word. The man was completely devoted to Aria in a way that would have been romantic if it wasn't also slightly terrifying.
Because Mei also saw the possessiveness. The intensity. The barely controlled need to own, to control, to keep Aria close at all costs.
She'd seen that look before. In another man. A man she'd loved and fled from twenty-five years ago.
"You love my daughter," Mei said simply. "I can see it in the way you look at her and pay attention to her needs."
"I do love her. More than I've ever loved anyone."
